


star seeker

by pistolgrip



Series: heavenbound, together [6]
Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Apologies, Gen, Loss of Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 18:18:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16203005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pistolgrip/pseuds/pistolgrip
Summary: Forgiveness is a funny thing.(Siete, the Eternals, and how to begin again. Takes place after Siete’s 5* fates.)





	star seeker

**Author's Note:**

> edit: minor wording fixes

"So," Siete says nonchalantly, picking up a glass decoration from Siero's wares and inspecting it, "how's everyone doing?"

"Isn't it time you ask them yourself?" Siero asks the question with her own ever-present smile, chin in her hands as she observes Siete making a mess of her displays with his feigned casualness.

"You're too observant for your own good." It's already been a few weeks since his run-in with the Seven-Star Sword, but he's been avoiding bridging the gap between them as equally as the Eternals have been ignoring him. He's been questioning Siero for a few weeks now about everyone's status in lieu of talking to them directly, and she's been less and less forthcoming with information each time he asks.

Siero looks at him with compassion. "It's no secret that you care about them. I think things have settled a little bit by now, don't you?"

Truthfully, the idea of facing everyone again makes something clamp around his heart, constricts his throat until he can barely get any words out. He puts down the glass decoration as gently as he can, betraying his urge to throttle it until it shatters and all of the pieces render his hand useless. "You're right," he says, sighing. "Before you say anything more, I'll go and hunt them down myself."

"I was about to give you a little helping hand," Siero smiles in her very Siero manner, like she holds all the secrets of the universe and simply unleashes them whenever she feels, rending everyone around her at her mercy. "It's been a while since you and Nio have done me a favour."

* * *

All things considered, Nio isn't the worst first person for him to meet again after the Incident, capital i. She looks at him with the same tired, weary look she's reserved for Siete, and she stands slightly farther away from him than she normally does, but Siete knows it's one of the most neutral responses he'll get from any of the Eternals at this moment in time while still being a response.

There's discomfort in the way she holds herself, most likely from hearing his melody go haywire with inner turmoil, but the lack of conversation is tearing him apart. He coughs awkwardly and tries to fill the silence between them. "Just a standard collection job for Siero. She says she's running low on ambers."

She looks at him and says nothing else. The frown on her face becomes more noticeable.

"...Alright," he says, painfully uncomfortable. The two of them specifically have done this job for Siero several times before, but the way they're tiptoeing around each other now and trying to hunt monsters while not speaking reminds Siete of the first time they met. They'd come a long way since that time; Nio is still quiet, but more willing these days to talk and make jokes at his expense.

After the third amber they gather off a monster, he turns to her without warning, unable to take the tension. "Nio—"

"I know," she responds without missing a beat, but Siete can sense the relief in her voice. "I can hardly focus when your regret only knows how to play in fortissimo."

Nio gets to the point about not only how she feels, but how everyone else around her does. Maybe it's not such a bad idea to have met with her before the twins, after all; the ease at which she sees right through him is unsettling, but it calms his thoughts to some degree that Nio _understands,_ non-verbally, how deep his remorse runs. He doesn't have to use words to try and explain, at least not quite yet. He sighs, slumping down onto the ground.

Nio stops levitating and sits next to him while taking her koto out. "...Would you like to hear the song your sorrow makes?"

"I appreciate that you asked instead of just playing," he chuckles. "No, I'm well acquainted with it, rest assured, but thank you for the offer." He puts up a hand, intimately aware of what Nio's power does to people when she plays the songs of their emotions.

"I was hoping it would put your heart at ease, but if you insist. I have something to play regardless, but it would be more for my benefit than for yours. You're rather overwhelming today."

She opts to play a gentle melody that coils around his soul and relaxes him, although his heart drives the tempo of the song, beating steady in his ears as a reminder that he is alive. "It's nice," he says to get out of his head, because no sooner does he grow comfortable with the song does it begin to burrow itself under his skin.

"It's not me you should be apologizing to. I've always known you were a foolish man. Foolish and sincere. Your sincerity was, for many of us, the final blow, the poison barbs on the spear of your words." Her plainspoken words coupled with the gentle music feel like alcohol rubbed into his wounds: necessary, but acutely vicious. "It would do you well to stop delaying the inevitable. Speak with those who need it the most."

Siete's pride can be a sore point at times; it's habit from ever since he were a child to prove everyone wrong, his determination only growing the more impossible something seemed. As he'd grown older, he'd gotten better at discerning whether someone was goading him into action, but it had been for naught when he'd fallen for the Seven-Star Sword's drivel. His recklessness had caused so much strife among them that all he could do was make light of the situation, trying to defuse with humour before having a serious conversation.

Bad habit number two. There was no saving face there.

"You resisted the sword's call once, and yet you believed you could tame it," Nio chides, interrupting his thoughts. "Your lack of self-awareness at times continues to amaze me."

"I _know,_ _"_ he insists again, humiliated to have to heard it so plainly from someone else. The song Nio is playing bubbles up explosively from underneath his skin as frustration. Immediately, Nio's shield springs into life in front of her, the music stopping on a sour note, and Siete freezes in his tracks, frustration quickly dissolving into regret.

Nio's shield drops after they make eye contact, looking as if she has her own regrets about putting it up in the first place. "...I apologize. But in an instant, your melody had..." She looks away, and it's the first time Siete's seen her at a loss when speaking about music.

Nio isn't very talkative to begin with, but through the avenue of music—playing it, discussing it—she becomes more confident, her words poetic like song. For her to have been rendered speechless once she gets comfortable with her music is almost unheard of.

She stands up, as suddenly as her shield had manifested. "This may be too much for me at this time. I can complete the mission if needed, however..."

"No, that's—yeah, I get that," he says. Nio's gotten better at reining in her power in the past few years with the Eternals, and missions are no longer the emotional drain for her that it used to be. But the string connecting the ten of them is tuned tighter than most, and tension in one place leads to tension among the rest, and it's taken its toll on Nio. "Consider it a day off, don't worry about finishing here."

Here, Nio would say something along the lines of _I don't think you've reached the point at which you can be left without supervision,_ with a knowing smile that Siete's learnt over time to interpret as her making a joke. But instead, she says, "...I may take you up on that offer. My apologies," and she walks away, koto floating next to her, leaving Siete to his thoughts.

* * *

He curses himself as he finishes collecting the hundred or so ambers that Siero needs, and before the day ends, he catches the first ship he can to Stardust Town after depositing the items by the Knickknack Shack.

Although his time with Nio had ended less than optimally, talking to her had helped more than he'd imagined it would. She's generally the most non-confrontational of the Eternals, but offering to play the song of his remorse told him she was willing to listen, giving him some of his confidence back.

And now it's time for _this;_ it's the twins that he's known for the longest, the twins that he knows the most about, and he'd taken advantage of that to harm them. Meeting with them for the first time after their silence is no less daunting than it was earlier that day, but he's been putting the two of them off long enough.

Siete forgoes the rest of the Eternals uniform, equipping himself with nothing but a single rapier strapped to his belt and lightweight leather armour as he approaches the entrance.

Quatre's at the gate today. There's another orphan next to him, one that seems like she's about to greet Siete out of habit, but she stops and stays silent at the palpable disgust emanating off Quatre. He usually defaults to eyeing Siete with distaste before allowing any other emotions to seep through, but the scowl on his face now is pure malice, fangs baring.

Siete stops more than an arm's length away from him, and the orphan, at a loss, asks Quatre if he needs help. "No, but thank you," he says, voice genuinely sweet towards her, but never taking his eyes off Siete. The next words out of his mouth are dragged, screaming and kicking, to remain civil. "Just a rat in the sewers. You should head back."

She doesn't say anything, instead opting to scuttle away into the town. The second she's out of sight, Quatre takes out his daggers and attacks without a word.

The sword that Siete brings is made for purposeful, fatal thrusts. He's not here to land any blows. He uses it only to defend himself, the thin metal resonating every time he successfully blocks one of Quatre's daggers. It's been a while since they've fought so wholeheartedly, and Siete can't help but see the child with the double daggers from ten years ago, moves clumsy but with enough power and force and pure determination to cause serious harm.

There is none of that clumsiness now. Quatre's honed his ability so well that even when Siete's beginning to worry about his own ability to leave this battle _alive_ _,_ he feels his chest swell with pride at the young man that Quatre has grown into, his confidence and skill making him a force to be reckoned with.

(Siete knew how to thoroughly dismantle that force, if only for a moment. And when it came down to it, he hadn't hesitated to deal that blow.)

The memory distracts him long enough for Quatre to get a good, solid slash in. He knocks Siete to the ground and steps his heel into his wrist, forcing him to let go of the rapier. The white hot pain causes Siete to curl into himself, and when he regains his bearings, there's a dagger underneath the soft flesh of his chin, the rapier kicked far away—not that it was ever his intention to reach for it.

"You're a real scumbag, you know that?" Venom laces every syllable of Quatre's words, and as much as it is in every fibre of Siete's being to prove him wrong, he lets him unleash his barrage of words first. "And don't give me that 'I wasn't myself' bullshit. The entire time, I was thinking, you're just another one of _them._ Gone crazy with power, after so many years of telling me to control myself—what makes _you_ so much better?"

It takes a lot for Quatre to trust. Siete knows this, as someone that's had to fight to gain it once before, and compared to most other things it's harder to gain _trust_ the second time around than the first. "I was wrong," Siete says, plainly, because it's the most effective way to get through to Quatre right now. "I said what I did because I knew it would hurt you and your sister. The Sword—not all of it was the sword, _yes,"_ he says, rushing, watching Quatre's mouth open in protest, "but the Sword had me convinced that I could eliminate everything and take all the power for myself so I alone could control it."

"What the hell were you gonna do with that all of that power?"

Siete swallows. "Protect."

It's a sentiment that Quatre holds by his heart, and it's not far from Siete's, either. Quatre's eyes narrow, but he doesn't say anything, instead scanning Siete's face for any trace of insincerity. He takes it as an opportunity to continue.

"I fell prey to its call, and I used it as equally as it used me. I know you have little to no reason to trust me anymore—I've broken so many years of trust for the sake of bolstering my own pride, and I'll receive any punishment. Name it. Anything to prove I _regret,_ Quatre."

It feels like he's said it in one breath, feeling the point of the dagger underneath his chin, losing feeling in the hand that Quatre's heel has pinned down.

Suddenly, Quatre steps off of him and extends a hand. Siete stares at it, and then he curls his hand once, in a come hither motion. "Get up. I'm not telling you again." Siete takes the hand and he gets pulled up with too much force, almost tripping over his own feet. But he steadies himself, and without looking at him, Quatre walks back into town.

In the past, Siete might have stood up, thrown an easy arm around his shoulder, made a comment about how cold he was being. He feels like doing it now, dying to get back to the familiarity he'd had with everyone and skip the awkward but necessary process of proving his trustworthiness again.

"Wow, no comments? You're learning to shut up," Quatre sneers.

The orphan that was there earlier must have informed the rest of the town what was happening, because none of the children greet Siete as he trails behind Quatre. They stare, and they point, and they say things, and Siete offers a smile that's not his regular brilliance. Polite. Like a man being walked to the gallows, Quatre his executioner.

He's not even sure where he's going until they walk into one of the mess halls and Quatre throws him an apron. He ties it, a willing noose around his neck. "Your Eternals duties are on hold for the time being. No complaints. Didn't you say so yourself? Even without you, we'd be just fine. And besides." Quatre smirks, all teeth and no joy, and he turns around to leave. "We need more help here than out there, since we've never been able to protect anything in our lives."

Siete can't stop himself from physically recoiling when his own words come out of Quatre's mouth.

"Dinner is in four hours. It's been a while since we've had _big brother_ _Siete_ cook for us, hasn't it?"

* * *

No one visits him in the kitchen; it's lively on a regular day, some of the older children from the town coming in to help prep for the meals, but they're all obviously on orders not to speak to him. Siete's willing to bet they're all aware to some extent as to what he's said and done, and every time the thought crosses his mind, he has to pause to sigh and scratch his head in frustration.

Some time between the thirtieth and fortieth time he stops to do that, a voice interrupts his thoughts. "Do you need help?"

Esser's already putting on an apron that's hanging by the doorway and tying it around her waist, as if she knows how Siete's going to answer. Straightening up, he gives her a bitter smile. "It would be appreciated. I forget how much work feeding all these mouths are."

He turns back to chopping mass amounts of vegetables, giving himself a moment before he meets her in the eye again. She doesn't walk up to him; instead, she walks into the freezer, comes out with more ingredients, and begins to prep them on the counter opposite from him.

They still know the song and dance from younger times, know how to walk around each other and cover the different jobs in the kitchen without overstepping each other's attempts to get work done. The kitchen is quieter when it's only the two of them, but he can't call their silence peaceful, considering the circumstances.

The work goes slightly faster, both of them wordlessly dividing the tasks; Siete throws the first portion of everything they've prepped together into a large pot for the first batch of curry, and as he places it on the stove, he says, "So."

"Mm." Esser urges him to continue as she begins to clean up some of the utensils.

"I was, as your brother would say, a piece of shit."

She keeps her head down. "And what would _you_ say?"

"That I was a piece of shit."

She lets out a sigh that's a touch exasperated, but with it, tension releases from her stance, and her grip on the utensils slackens from knuckle-white. "And?"

Esser is not her brother. Quatre turns outwards, working himself to the bone to fend anyone off; when he was younger, exhaustion had become his best friend and his worst enemy, training until his muscles were sore, even when Siete would tell him to stop for the day. He'd take it as a challenge and attack again, his intent to kill amplified, and Siete would have no choice but to fight back or restrain him. Quatre was always ready to strike anything in his path for the protection of the town, and that hasn't changed at all. He's simply gotten better at knowing his limits and how to push them.

If Quatre is _hope for the best_ , Esser is _expect the worst._ She undeniably has the same drive as her brother, but she turns inwards, almost to a fault. Quatre makes the path with the blood of his enemies, and Esser is willing to siphon every last drop from her own veins to create a path, fully at her own expense. She's a fantastic marksman, but it's her last resort rather than her first choice.

Where Quatre met his episode with explosive feelings of betrayal, Esser met it with a steely resignation.

"I'm sorry," he starts, and it's quite possibly the worst way to start an apology by pure virtue of the fact that it's underwhelming. "I apologize," he tries again, like it somehow carries more impact than _I'm sorry,_ "for my actions. If it was senseless violence, I'd know what to say. But I said very specific things to hurt everyone, _especially_ you two.

"It's you two that I know the best, and it's because of that I knew exactly what I said to—" _hurt you_ feels underwhelming, too, and he reconsiders. "To demoralize you. Things that would ensure you wouldn't recover after I defeated you. I understand that trust is a fragile thing, and that I've broken it. That's, what, ten years I've known you two now? Ten years for two days caused by a moment of recklessness and meaningless pride on my part."

She finishes washing the utensils and wipes them down to put away, before taking another large cutting board and a knife; from the other sink, she takes meat that's been defrosting, cutting them into smaller pieces. He wants to turn back to the stove and continue watching the pot, wants to keep working on other parts of the meal, but he forces himself to stay still and wait as her mouth opens and she she says, in a steady voice that needed to be practiced in the face of hardship, "Do you remember when you first found us?"

"Can't forget," he says, chuckling. "Nearly killed me on sight."

"You understand, yes? We had no reason to trust you. How many times has an adult come through our town with the promises of helping, only to undo all of our progress?" The look in her eyes as she recalls previous betrayals suddenly reminds Siete that Quatre is, truly, her brother. "I was ready at any call to give myself up and allow the cycle of violence to stop, and yet Quatre kept fighting."

She looks up at him. Her eyes are icy cold. "Regardless of whether they were your true beliefs, or if it was simply something you said to destroy our spirits... it was _successful._ Your voice haunts me, Siete. Was I truly never able to protect a single thing in my life? Had all my efforts— _mine_ , specifically, barring my brother, barring the efforts of every single person in Stardust Town—had they all been for nothing?

"I wanted to kill you," she says, finally. Her eyes narrow, disgust and anger and betrayal twisting her face into something fierce. "Not merely for what you had done to me, but to my brother. You disgusted me."

Hearing the words repeated at him is like a knife through his gut, shame running hot through his spine. He forces himself to keep eye contact, swallowing all of his urges to keep talking his way back to the trust they had before. He _wants_ things to be easy again, to fall back into old patterns with everyone. But where they are is less than the base distrust the twins had towards adults. Talking alone won't fix it, as desperately as he wishes it would, but words are a start. "Esser, you and your brother are the most incredible people I've ever met in my life. It would be a disservice your tireless efforts to call the longevity of Stardust Town a miracle."

She smiles, but there's little humour in it, her teeth baring. "You understand that the integrity of that statement is compromised by your own previous actions. You were the first adult my brother trusted—not that you were much of an adult when we first met you, mind you. But you were older by a significant margin, and that was enough."

She finishes cutting the meat, and she washes her hands and takes the apron off, hanging it at the entrance again. She's said her piece, and Siete respects that; she's leaving him time to process her words, a force in its own right. But without turning around, she says softly, her shoulders releasing tension, "You've proved yourself once. All you can do is try again. What kind of older brother would you be if you turned tail and never spoke to us ever again?"

He watches her leave, and despite everything, he believes.

* * *

Dinner is an awkward affair. He doesn't join them, continues to cook in the kitchen as mealtime begins in order to keep up with demands. It's nice to hear the members of Stardust Town enjoy themselves, at least; Quatre and Esser handle taking the pans he prepares out from the kitchen to serve everyone, not talking to him during the process, and he doesn't see any of the other kids from Stardust Town that night. In a sense, the endless work is more of a reprieve than a punishment. It keeps him busy with a one-track mind, focusing on making sure everyone gets fed.

Whether it's an hour or three until they finish, Siete isn't sure; the voices in the mess hall eventually thin out, and the twins come in less often for requests of food, so he takes a breather and cleans up. It gets quiet enough that he thinks he can duck out and see if the twins needs help, but he doesn't get any farther than the doorway before he feels his train of thought derail.

In the middle of the mess hall, the seven other Eternals have gathered, their uniforms nearly glowing under the harsh fluorescent lights. It seems too soon for them to meet again, their gazes still spiked with venom, not too different from the night of the incident. There are a lot of things he could say to open a conversation— _long time no see, sorry you just missed dinner, there's leftovers in the back_. There are things that would be perfect, and things that would cause their bond to break irreparably, but the only thing that would be _satisfactory_ is nothing, and in the end, it's the one he picks.

He unties his apron and tosses it on one of the counters, making his way towards them. Quatre and Esser see him emerge, and they quickly usher the other kids out of the building. They take their seats just as Siete stands at the head of their table—normally as a leader, today under the discriminating eyes of a jury.

The Seven-Star Sword was only partly to blame for his actions. Siete was nothing more than a vessel, a weapon for destruction, but an efficient one all the same. The second of breathing room between when Uno had pointed his spear to his throat and when he'd taken it away to allow everyone to lecture him, Siete tried instead to joke it away, make light as if nothing happened. It had taken days, in some cases even weeks, for some of them to look at him without scowling or turning away.

As much as he'd been hoping for an opportunity like this, he isn't prepared enough. There's things he has to say, individually and to the group, and he doesn't know where to begin: his lack of responsibility directly after everyone had finished restraining him, resorting to making jokes to try and restore status quo? His selfishness for believing that he had the power to control even the tiniest sliver of the supernatural and becoming controlled by it instead?

There's a barely imperceptible _thump_ of wood against wood, and everyone turns to lift their head towards the source. Nio looks up at all of them briefly, an apology for disturbing the peace not quite on her lips, and then she begins to play, eyes closing as her harp rests on her shoulder.

Almost immediately, Siete feels sick to his stomach. All of them know what Nio's power does, and after so many years together they know what she's doing before the first pluck of the string; everyone's collective sentiments of betrayal, disappointment, and _disgust_ overcome him, and he sinks down into a seat, runs both of his hands through his hair and grips in it, looking down at the wood of the table in front of him.

His oldest friend. _Will you hurry up and get ready to fight, Uno? If you keep screwing around... you'll die._

The peacemaker. _I have some unfortunate news though. You won't be leaving. I want to prove something... I want to prove that in the Eternals, the sword reigns supreme._

The most carefree spirit of them all. _T_ _he Eternals' purest reserve of pure brute strength has been subdued._

The one he wanted to bring from the darkness. _Too busy to play with you right now, kitty cat. So sorry._

A pure soul, somehow unmarred by the desolation of the world. _That's right! You sure are,_ _Funf,_ _dear! So let's talk like grown-ups to prove it!_

The blade of unrelenting justice, striking down neither good nor evil but only the cowardly and the spineless. _This bad boy called out to me personally. Told me to show it what I can do._ _(_ _That hardly seems like something you'd care about._ _)_

The kindest soul, her loneliness through the depths of the earth. _I can't wait. If you're ever worth my time, I'll give you another shot._

And—

_If you want to keep going, by all means go ahead. I won't stop you. But you're beyond done, aren't you?_

_You were never able to protect a single thing in your entire life. What good are you without that calm and collected nature of yours?_

All of his words come rushing back at once, and he blinks back into the present time. Moisture mars the sheen of the wood, and moving one of his hands down to rub at his eyes, he realizes he's crying. Without thinking, his head shoots up to face Nio.

She's still playing, but this time she's looking at him, no longer as absorbed in the music of everyone else's souls. Her expression has softened, something kinder than pity in her eyes—kinder to him, because she knows that pity is not kind—and he swallows.

The song transitions seamlessly into another one. Melodically, it doesn't sound too different from what was being played before, but everyone in the room can feel the shift in the air. It's the other side of the coin, the regret and shame that Siete feels for having treated everyone how he did, and it turns him inside out to have his emotions drawn out out so easily, heartstrings tightened around Nio's harp and played for everyone to hear.

None of his years of battle have ever been as difficult as this, simply receiving the scrutiny of the other Eternals, his own _friends,_ for his misdeeds. The feeling of sitting in front of them now is almost worse than the first meeting, because both sides have had time to process their own emotions alongside Siete's actions.

But something in the melody strikes him as odd, and even though it's meant to be his own, it takes him a while to pin it down; there's something there, a rise and lift in the song that shouldn't make sense but _does._ It's the soul of their second meeting in the present, because as the Eternals have had to process their emotions, Siete has, too, and this is when it comes back—the knowledge that comes with regret, the relentless drive to action that comes with repentance.

The songs finally end, and Siete sighs shakily, leaning back until his head tips over the edge of the chair and he's staring at the ceiling. In the mess hall, the fluorescent lights buzz at a frequency that gives Siete a headache. He closes his eyes.

"...He's being sincere," Nio says, uncharacteristically breaking the silence. The summary of his emotions in one curt sentence is so absurd to him that he feels like laughing.

"Nio," he says, and he doesn't like how his voice sounds when he says it, a bit too defeated, "did you have to make me cry to prove that point? I look like a loser." He says it as a joke, adds a laugh at the end that doesn't sound real to anyone in the room. It's an old habit to make light of something to kill the tension, but Siete's never felt more relieved to have one of his jokes fall flat.

"You're too prideful of a man to do it unprompted." There's something in her voice that finally makes Siete raise his head again to look at her. There's the smile on her face again, only the hint of one, and this time it's born of familiarity and understanding of who he is.

Despite being complete opposites in their battle styles and personality, Nio is the one that has fought alongside him most often these days. She supports the team from the back, makes them all stronger so they can complete their missions with little casualty. She's always been their silent force, and if she had any trace of malevolence in her, he's sure the Eternals would have been torn apart at the first chance. But she's only ever used her ability to play to help everyone she can, and they've all grown for it.

He's staring at her because it's safe; she's already shown that she's willing to forgive. The others—he _has_ to turn and face the others, but before he can even tear his eyes away, Funf hops out of her chair, sending the stacked up books she's been sitting on clattering to the ground. The sound is like a gunshot, knocking everyone out of the fragile silence they've all created. She runs over and punches him in the leg, once.

It's more painful than he expects it to be; it's a startling amount of force concentrated into attacking one of his pressure points (and of course Funf would know those sorts of things), and before he can stop himself he yelps and doubles over, clutching his leg. Sarasa snorts with laughter, but the abrupt way she stops makes Siete think that someone's stopped her from cackling further.

"I deserved that," he hisses, head resting against the cool wood of the table.

"You did," Funf says, and he sees her cross her arms from his peripheral.

His hand goes out to pat Funf on the head, and, feeling overcome by emotion, he gets out of his chair to meet her at eye level instead. "Sorry for being an awful big brother."

Funf frowns, crossing her arms. "That's not enough. You weren't just mean to me. You were mean to _everyone._ I'm not happy until everyone else is."

"Don't worry, Funf. I won't be happy until all of you are, either." Hesitant grin across his face, Siete turns back to the room. "If anyone wants to take turns punching me, you all get one solid hit. Anywhere you want." The grin drops after a while; it's becoming a chore to keep up in the face of everyone's disdain.

Quatre stands up from his chair, the sudden motion sending it clattering to the ground. It's the only warning Siete gets before he's thrown sideways with the pure force of Quatre's punch to his face. He collides with his own chair, the cold sticky floor of the mess hall a soothing balm against his cheek. He lays there long enough to hear Quatre wordlessly take his seat again, and then slowly he stands back up, leaving his chair where it is. "Who's next?" he asks, beginning to feel the punch bruise.

No one bites. "...I'd rather hear what you have to say for yourself already," Song says, somewhat awkwardly, but resolute.

Something twists in Six's voice when he speaks up. "You've run away for long enough."

He looks at everyone, once. Rubbing at his cheek, he thinks the punches might have knocked something loose in his brain, because his apprehension has all but disappeared, replaced by determination to set things right, once and for all.

He takes a deep breath, and the air sticks down his throat and the inside of his lungs. It feels like he's stepped outside to the first unexpected the first chill of the year, the moisture in the air frosting everything it touches, and the sensation follows every breath he takes until he feels lightheaded. "To tell you the truth, I'm not sure where to start. Everything I could have done wrong, I did. I knew exactly how to hurt all of you, words _and_ actions, and I did. I'm not fit to call myself your leader after this one."

"As if you were ever fit," Quatre spits.

Maybe Quatre's right; Siete has to stop his first reaction to fight that designation of _unfit leader,_ to work until he's proven that he's respectable and reliable and all the things he knows he could be, but it's too soon. There's currently no foundation for it to lay on, and all of his efforts would go to waste if he doesn't do _this,_ now, as much as it tears him limb from limb to even begin the process.

"Uno," he says. Apologizing individually seems like the natural course, and who better to start with? "People suspect you as the leader of the Eternals before me, and I suppose for good reason. I founded the Eternals with you, and I became the very thing that we sought to fight against.

"Nio, for making you fight, for causing discord among the Eternals when you're so attuned to everyone's emotions, for destroying the peace that we said we would bring,

"Sarasa—for putting you in a situation in which you could have lost everything once again,

"Six, for attempting to render you powerless, for challenging the light that guides your path,

"Funf, for subjecting you to senseless violence,

"Okto, for destroying the integrity of the path of following strength,

"Song, for working to isolate you from your own friends,

"Quatre, Esser..." His train of thought stops when he sees them again, twin expressions of anger but more importantly, wariness."For everything.

"I apologize." He feels his soul drain from his body as the words finally come out. The silence is so thick it suffocates him, and he counts every one of his breaths. "I'd still want nothing more than to be your leader, and I plan on earning it, if you'd allow me."

No one says anything else for a while; there's a lot of things to be said, and no easy way to approach all of it. Uno tries first. "Your altercation with the Seven-Star Sword had you acting in ways I didn't believe was possible. It went against everything you stood for, and I had to wonder whether you'd been pulling the wool over our eyes all this time. I thought I knew you better than anyone, but even I began to have my doubts after that."

"I'm disappointed," Song says, finally. "I would say 'I'm not mad, just disappointed', but I _am_ very mad as well."

Sarasa huffs, leaning her elbows on the table. "I figured you were being your same dumbass self, but man, you really made everyone mad, huh?"

Uno shakes his head. "You recall that from the conference we held, we considered you completely to blame for every single aspect of that incident, from your pride to the abuse of your own intimate knowledge of each of the Eternals."

"Yes," Siete says, not quite sure where it's going.

"That hasn't changed."

"I don't expect it to."

"But there might be worth in discussing next steps. We cannot remain in this cycle of regret and blame and anger. And from one friend to another," Uno says, small smile taking hold on his face, "perhaps you've looked like enough of a 'loser' to prove your point."

Slowly, Siete lets his eyes wander to the other faces around the table. Most of them hold traces of discomfort, but no one is rising from their seats to punch him in the face again, and no one is adamantly resisting Uno's words.

More than trust, more than forgiveness— _hope_ is a funny thing, the hope that Siete means what he says when he makes a case for forgiveness, even though his words from the incident are forever etched into the back of their minds. The hope that they don't have to watch their again around him, or hide things from him in the fear it'll be used against them. The hopes that Siete could be even more than the leader he was before, someone that none of them can doubt.

There is no repairing shattered glass, but there is mending it, picking the shards out from where he's crushed it in his hand one by one to put the pieces back together.

He raises his head higher, sits up straight, letting the hope bleed open from his palms. "That's a start."

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've always been disappointed by the lack of... remorse that Siete shows at the end of his 5*, along with the ending lines:
> 
> _> In a conference held by the Eternals shortly thereafter, they find Seofon entirely responsible for the incident._  
>  _> (Captain) and the rest of the Eternals don't speak to him for some time after._  
>  _> Seofon: Hoo boy... Looks like I'm back to counting on Siero to find out what's going on with everybody..._  
>  _> Seofon, leader of the Eternals. Is he amazing... or just amazingly bad at his job? Only time will tell._
> 
> It seems like a big copout to me? Siete seems overly flippant for someone that _does_ sincerely care about the Eternals, especially the twins. I've chosen to interpret it as "Siete realizes he's fucked up so bad he doesn't even know where to start and makes jokes in bad taste instead". I'm not asking for a whole other episode about him going and apologizing to everyone individually—I'd write it myself if I were less lazy, truthfully—but it would be nice if Siete would stop being treated like a joke. lol  
>  Also Nio because 1. I love her 2. She fights next to him on every wind team 3. I love her. I don't make the rules
> 
> Thank you to the friends who looked over my characterization for me! Siete + the twins are especially hard for me to write


End file.
